Mortal Engines Review

Movie fans Young Adult novels have been getting adaptations for what seems like quite along time and alot of that is due to the fact that Harry Potter was a success but the difference was Harry Potter was actually good. Well now we have another one and unlike all the others this one has some pedigree behind it with Peter Jackson serving as producer and so here is my review of Mortal Engines.

The plot to this movie is a mysterious young woman named Hester Shaw joins forces with Anna Fang a dangerous outlaw with a bounty on her head and Tom Natsworthy an outcast from London to lead a rebellion against a giant predator city on wheels. In all honesty the summery makes the movie sound alot more interesting then what it actually is because this movie just isn't that interesting and neither is the plot of the movie.

Starring in the film is Hera Hilmar as Hester Shaw , Robert Sheehan as Tom Natsworthy , Hugo Weaving as Thaddeus Valentine , Jihae as Anna Fang , Leila George as Katherine Valentine , Ronan Raftery as Bevis Pod , Patrick Malahide as Magnus Crome and Stephen Lang as Shrike. Oh Hugo why do you always say yes to bad movies dude you had the chance to reappear in Infinity War and you said no so you chose this film over Infinity War. 

The acting in the film isn't honestly that bad it's also not really that good either this is a tough one for me because I can't think of a single actor who gave the best performance since every actor is just doing what feels like the bare minimum. It also doesn't help that alot of these actors barring one or two are either unknown actors (at least in a mainstream sense) or as in the case with Jihae a singer who isn't trained in acting.

I'm going to come right out and say it the main hero of the film Hester Shaw looks way more intimidating with her bandanna on then she does with it off. That is honestly one of the things that would have made the film alot more interesting since then you'd have people wondering why she keeps the lower half of her face covered but we can't have anything even remotely interesting in this film.

That honestly leads to me to big surprise another thing that I didn't like about the movie. You see i've never read the books that this is based on so just by reading the Wikipedia page for the first book I found out that Hester has a scar on her face and how is that scar represented in the film by being something that's barely visible when seen on film and by being something doesn't take away from her stunning the actress is.  

That to me is a real shame because they could have done alot more with the scar then what they did end up doing. Imagine if the scar on her face was so big and so deep that it actually disfigured her face and that was why she had to wear a bandanna. Tho since this is hollywood we can't have anything like because all of our actors and actresses need to look as beautiful as possible even tho that wouldn't make sense for the character.

Now this will shock you because there is something in this really bad film that I actually liked and that was the CGI. That's not really surprising given that the effects for the film were done by Weta Digital so we must be grateful for small mercy's. There effects in the film are honestly some of the best scenes in the whole freaking movie that really is saying something when the best thing about the whole film is a bunch of things done in a computer.

Guys this movie is so freaking predictable that instead of telling a story unique to it's own little world the whole thing just feels like it's going through the motions ( no Sarah Michelle Geller don't you start singing) and that to me is a really bad thing. it also isn't helped by the fact that this film is super boring guys no freaking joke I managed to start writing this review and do a few posts on some apps while watching this movie it's that boring and i'll get into why it's boring later on because trust me your going to want to know why.

Ok guys and girls it's later so let me tell you why I think this movie is so freaking dull and boring. it's like that because of two things 1) the characters are so uninteresting that it's unreal these characters feel like cardboard cutouts of characters from other young adult novels and 2) the story is uninteresting. The set up for this film allows for a really interesting story but the film doesn't take advantage of it instead it plays it safe and boring by giving us the same old story we've seen a hundred times before in other movies and books.

I don't think that this story works in a feature film format because like I said it does have an interesting set up. If anything it would work better as a TV show imagine if we had like ten hour long episodes on something like Netflix that would then give us more time to develop the story and the characters and would thus make us care about them but as a two hour feature film it doesn't work and is prove that not all YA books need to be turned into films.

Overall film fans this is a bad film and not in a so bad it's good kind of way like the Sharknado films but in a so bad all copies of it should be destroyed kind of way. I don't think this needs saying but I have to say it anyway this film gets a 1 out of 10 from me.